Putnam County Spelling Bee on stage March 1-3 at Florida School of the Arts

BOB FELDHEIM

Thursday

Feb 28, 2013 at 6:52 PM

The Florida School of the Arts (FloArts), in Palatka, is a dynamic part of St. Johns River State College. Talented, theatre-directed students come from all over to enroll.

Currently, three recent graduates from St. Augustine - Butler Robertson, Sami Gresham and Kristina Garcia-Santiago - are appearing on stage as part of a huge cast and impressive production of the raucous one-act musical comedy, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." I was privileged to sit in on a dress rehearsal earlier in the week.

"Spelling Bee" is just that - a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School. Quirky adolescents compete; equally-quirky grown-ups are in charge.The setting is the school basketball court, re-created in unbelievably realistic detail by a team headed by faculty member Rob O'Leary, with his team of student-assistants.

Patricia Crotty directed. Choreography is by Freddick Bratcher.

"Spelling Bee" does not conform to the accepted definition of a play, even a comcdic one. Rather, it's a vehicle for getting out there and strutting your stuff - singing, dancing, playing off one another.

The group of students in the rehearsal audience whooped and hollered in joy at every turn of events. ("Goodbye, Goodbye," the surviving contestants sing as one after another fail to meet the challenge and are pulled unceremoniously off the gym floor.)

There are two dozen individual musical numbers. Except for the actual Bee procedure - the test word, its meaning, and usage, followed by the painful, agonizing letter-by-letter spelling effort - it plays like an operetta, the lyrics driving the plot.

Based upon the enormity of effort, the number of persons involved, if friends, family, and classmates all turn out to cheer their favorites on, "Spelling Bee" should be a sellout.

The Floarts theater is located, 5001 St. Johns Ave., in Palatka. Continue past the main campus gates, turn left at College Road, to the second parking lot.

Show times are 7:30 p.m. March 1-2; and 2:30 p.m. March 3. Admission is $5. Call 386-312-4300 or go to floarts.org.

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